Witch Doctor
The Witch Doctor, also known as Doc, was a powerful privateer and a practitioner of Black Magic. Initially a member of Jack the Red’s crew, the Witch Doctor assumed command after Jack’s untimely death in the Dancing Moon of Year 434. As leader, Doc followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, carrying out raids in the Andris area. But at some point along the way, Jack’s ghost started to haunt the ship. For whatever reason, the ghost could not or would not be resurrected. It was around this time that Doc began to search for Jack’s magical katana which had fallen into the hands of Hayate. Some have surmised that the katana was somehow connected to its fallen owner, and that Jack could only return to the living with the aid of the weapon’s magical properties. Whatever the case may have been, Doc and his crew were incentivized enough to kidnap Senator Fieltler and demand the katana as ransom. The whole affair came as a huge shock to the citizens of Oberin – it was widely known that Andris did not even have the katana. Thus the Witch Doctor, as some observers pointed out, had no apparent reason to kidnap Fieltler, let alone any other senator. One possible explanation was that the Doctor was not as strong as he was made out to be, and thus could not simply steal the katana from Hayate. Still others suspected that the Witch Doctor was in league with the Venom Cult and the Division of Diabolical Devices. These two organizations were already conspiring against Andris at the time, and both would have had much to gain from Fieltler’s kidnapping. The venom priests, for one, had been forced into hiding four years prior as a result of Fieltler’s actions. And the Diabolicals had designs on the magical device that she had used to defeat the priests. But there was never any hard evidence connecting these groups to the Witch Doctor, so the matter remains one of pure speculation. Doc soon received a message from the Senate saying that Andris was willing to meet his demands (Hayate had bequeathed the katana to the Senate). Secretly, the Senate was planning to rescue Fieltler without giving up the katana. The pirates and the Andrisians gathered at the Crescent Isle to make the exchange. All appeared to be going smoothly, but there was a moment of confusion and fighting broke out. Amidst the chaos, Doc cut off one of Fieltler’s hands, and then he and his crew fled with their prisoner. They left behind a note warning that any further attempts to double-cross the pirates would result in Fieltler’s demise. But as Andris would later learn from the rogue Samic, Doc had prepared the note beforehand, suggesting that he had somehow been made wise to the Senate’s subterfuge. Not to be deterred by this setback, Doc attempted to resume negotiations with Andris. The Red City was not so keen on the idea, and so progress halted. For almost an entire year, Doc kept Senator Fieltler in the brig, keeping her under control with his black magic and a voodoo doll. Then one night, there was a lapse in Doc’s control over the senator, perhaps owing to his having drunken too much rum. Fieltler used the opportunity to send a message to Andris, informing the city that her captors were about to lay anchor in Port Gast. The ship arrived in Gast right on schedule. While a force was gathering nearby to rescue the senator, Doc teleported to Andris and finally managed to retrieve the katana. When Doc returned to the port, he found that his ship had been overrun and that Fieltler had been freed. Not wanting to risk his prize, Doc and the remainder of his crew made a hasty exit, and that was the last time they were to appear in the public records. Immediately, there was a great deal of skepticism regarding the timing of the incidents, and the ease with which Doc had taken the weapon. Senator Morgans herself recalled that Doc had known exactly where to look. A small but vocal group of dissenters accused the Senate of foul play, arguing that Doc must have had some help from the inside. But this too was only speculation, and the truth never was fully determined one way or the other. Category:Quest Character